27 September 2021
Clare Tries, Founder and CEO of Clash Creative
Five-minute read
The world of marketing is constantly shifting. To keep up with the ever-evolving ways your target audience absorbs and interacts with your content, it’s essential to establish a solid and effective marketing plan.
Moreover, as businesses compete to engage the same target audience, marketing tactics must yield meaningful, measurable results through a combination of techniques that aim to complement and strengthen an existing marketing plan – no matter how limited it may be.
Today’s marketing world holds a robust arsenal of tools for maximizing the market reach and profitability of any business, large or small. An effective marketing strategy should consider all aspects of a given client, industry, and market through various methods designed to increase lead generation and sales output and improve ROI over time.
But first – what should you ensure isn’t included in your marketing plan? Here are our top five worst marketing tactics; avoiding these will save you time, money, resources, and a whole lot of headache!:
Prioritizing non-trackable marketing methods and techniques
According to a 2017 report by ITSMA and Vision Edge, over 70 percent of results generated by marketing strategies are unable to be adequately tracked, measured, or reported for the purposes of identifying strategic marketing weaknesses and improving digital strategies in the long term.
To gain important insights into the performance and effectiveness of your current marketing strategy, it’s essential to avoid overspending on non-trackable marketing methods like community canvassing, handouts, and telemarketing outreach.
Instead, prioritize trackable marketing methods and techniques that will provide concrete data related to the performance and effectiveness of your current marketing strategy.
Trackable marketing provides companies access to information related to the reach of a given campaign in terms of engagements and visibility. A few prominent examples include an email marketing campaign, an ad campaign, or a lead capturing landing page.
Prioritizing standardized (and bland!) marketing language
Failure to adapt marketing language to suit various channels or audiences when necessary can significantly detriment your strategy. Instead, companies wishing to promote their products or services should strive to create an interesting tone of voice for their marketing materials and an ad campaign that captures the attention of their ideal client.
A prominent example of a company using the power of intentional tone in their marketing materials is Burger King, whose provocative series of online fast food advertisements – with their biting social commentary and rivalry-sparking jabs at competing franchises – highlights the effectiveness of creating a branded voice that either inspires or inflames its audience.
Manipulating regurgitated real-world issues to gain marketing advantage
Perhaps one of the biggest marketing blunders of the last five years, the controversial 2017 Pepsi advertisement highlighted the danger in using real-life social, cultural, and political issues for corporate gain. The long-time historical rival of Coca-Cola, Pepsi published an advertisement emulating dramatic imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement in which a police officer accepts the beverage from Kendall Jenner, a white socialite, in a climactic scene.
In its attempt to inject a message of unity and peace into its ad campaign, Pepsi instead promoted marketing material that, either directly or indirectly, trivialized a social justice movement of significant national and international interest. This served only to further segment target markets and, more importantly, exacerbate incredibly delicate cultural, social, and political divides throughout the world.
Overwhelming your marketing channels with excessive filler content
When it comes to digital marketing, quality content is king. As you reevaluate your current marketing plan, consider how often you post “filler” content to your various social media channels and certain areas of your website, like your blog or news sections.
In general, users would prefer not to have their social feeds inundated with filler marketing content, like inspirational quotes or memes – it’s bad marketing. Instead, improve follower retention for your online business or social networking accounts by publishing valuable content that educates, informs, or engages the user.
Juggling all social media channels
One of the biggest marketing mistakes a business can make is to waste time on social media platforms that are irrelevant to their target audience.
We recommend maximizing your online outreach and engagement opportunities by using social channels where your ideal client spends their time. It’s better to narrow down the platforms you take on and focus on content for the right channels, especially if you are concerned with your marketing spend.
Asking for help
The need to strengthen your current marketing strategy and find the right marketing solutions for your business can feel overwhelming – but luckily, there are many resources available for improving your approach to customer and lead engagement.
Book a Call
Book a call with Clare, the marketing mastermind behind Clash Creative, to discover marketing techniques that best suit your unique organization so you can reach your audience more effectively and, in turn, scale faster than imagined.
Clare Tries is the Founder and CEO of Clash Creative. She is a creative copywriter and passionate marketing professional with over a decade of experience in the IT industry. Her company provides collaborative and rewarding marketing solutions for IT industry and small business professionals.
